Mason Rudolph: ‘Good Opportunity For This Team To Come Together’

Mason Rudolph took some of the blame for the loss on Saturday and talked about what his relationship with his head coach was like in the locker room afterwards. The entire post-game scene fascinates me. Here are Rudolph’s comments.

“He made a call, and he wanted to throw the ball away on 4th down,” said Rudolph of the wild intentional grounding call. “Obviously there’s going to be a lot of speculation and a lot of talk. I think it’s a good opportunity for this team together and bounce back and be driven this week in practice.

“I can’t speak for him. I’m just doing what I’m told. I love my coach. I love coach Gundy — I’ve loved him since the day I signed here — I’ll do anything for him. I was just following orders. Stuff happens in life. That’s adversity. But we’ll be fine.

“[Gundy] is a stand-up dude. He’s going to accept responsibility for some things that don’t go our way. But I think it was more on me and the offense’s part for sputtering in the first half and even second half. Putting our defense in a bad situation. I deserve as much blame, and this offense … as does anyone else.”

Rudolph seems pretty all right with the loss which is what I want from my QB1. Even keeled. Never too high. Never too low. He played poorly on Saturday (which I talked about here), but OSU will be fine the rest of the season. And this dude is one of the main reasons why.

“I don’t think it will be hard [to put this game behind us]. These seniors and these older guys have seen a lot of adversity throughout our careers, and we’ll be able to turn around and move forward quickly.”